By Jane Chanda
Engineering Institution of Zambia (EIZ) president Wesley Kaluba says the government’s failure to appoint an independent consulting engineer on the $650 million Lusaka-Ndola dual carriageway project may compromise its quality and execution.
And Association of Consulting Engineers of Zambia president Oliver Makungu said the government’s failure to pay off legacy debt is crippling consulting firms, forcing some to close shop or scale down operations.
Speaking at a press briefing in Lusaka yesterday, Kaluba expressed concern over the lack of government’s action despite repeated calls to engage an independent engineer.
He said this massive infrastructure development, implemented under a Public-Private Partnership, aimed to enhance the smooth flow of goods, raw materials, and commuters, boosting the economy.
Therefore, Kaluba emphasised the critical role of an independent engineer in providing unbiased professional oversight, ensuring the project met the highest standards and mitigated technical risks.
“The engagement of an independent engineer is critical in providing unbiased professional oversight, ensuring that the project meets the highest standards and mitigating technical risks,” Kaluba said
He also stressed the importance of adopting Output-Based Performance Contracts, which involved an independent consultant overseeing the design and execution of infrastructure projects, to ensure quality assurance and accountability.
“The engagement of an independent engineer is critical in providing unbiased professional oversight, ensuring that the project meets the highest standards and mitigating technical risks,” Kaluba said.
He also raised concerns over the struggling engineering consulting sector, citing the government’s unpaid debt of approximately 500 million Kwacha to the road sector, adding that the financial strain hindered the training and induction of engineering students, who relied heavily on road construction projects for practical experience.
He further urged the government to urgently address these concerns and act on expert recommendations to safeguard both the project’s success and the integrity of the engineering sector.
Kaluba also warned that the absence of an independent engineer and the struggling engineering consulting sector may have long-term consequences on the project’s quality and the sector’s growth.
“The government needs to prioritize paying off consultants and address the concerns of the engineering consulting sector to ensure the project’s success and the sector’s integrity,” said Kaluba.
Speaking at the same event, Association of Consulting Engineers of Zambia president Oliver Makungu said small and medium enterprises, including consulting firms, were the backbone of Zambia’s economy, saying the burden of debt was making it extremely difficult for these businesses to survive.
He noted that as consultants, they fell under the category of SMEs and the weight of debt was becoming unbearable.
“As we speak, some companies, consulting firms, have closed shops, some have actually scaled down their operations,” Makungu said.
He also highlighted the impact of this debt on engineering students.
“And I want to reiterate what President Hakainde Hichilema said regarding students coming from universities – we used to absorb quite a number of them because we were able to, at the time, provide for them in terms of salary payments and other emoluments, which we are not capable of doing at the present moment because of the challenges we are facing in terms of indebtedness,” Makungu said.
He expressed surprise and disappointment that the government had not prioritised legacy debt, which had been accumulating over time, resulting in his members suffering the consequences of this debt for many years.
Makungu said the lack of payment to consultants could lead to shoddy work, suggesting that a lack of motivation due to non-payment may be a contributing factor, although he said this was not an excuse, but rather a possibility and urged the government to look at this issue seriously if they wanted to get value for money on all public projects.
He noted that shoddy work and poor performance were issues more commonly associated with the government projects, rather than those in the private sector, where timely payments tended to motivate employees to deliver quality work.
Makungu further criticised the contracts issued by the public sector, saying they often departed from best practices.
“And also, on the issue of contracts coming from the public sector, so to speak, a lot of them have been adulterated, departed from base practice, and as a result, you find that even when there are abstraction cases, it’s very difficult for the drafter of these contracts to win because they have departed so much from practice,” said Makungu. “They have introduced certain clauses that are harming the consultants or contractors, and in the end, creating unbalanced contracts with risks skewed towards contractors and consultants.”
